By Sandra Collins

This blog is about communicating your value (“messaging”).

 

Your branding and the image you convey are the first impressions that your prospects will receive about your company (read more about that here). The next key piece of information in their assessment of you should be your messaging. “Messaging” is the primary way you describe what you do, and it should accomplish two things:

1. Let prospects know what you do (at least at a high level)
2. Describe your primary target market (if you have chosen to target a specific group of people with a specific need) and/or convey your primary value proposition

The objective of messaging is that when prospects intersect with your company (wherever that may be) they know right away what you do and why they should care. If they have no other available information, they know whether what you do intersects with what they are looking for. If they are in an information-seeking stage, this makes sure you are available for consideration and not disregarded.

To illustrate, let’s look at Curious Dog Marketing’s messaging. To start, the word “marketing” is part of my company’s name. If the name had been only “Curious Dog,” it wouldn’t be obvious what I do and busy people might pass on by because they aren’t in need of a doggie daycare or grooming salon.

Next, the tagline, “Fetching More Customers With Marketing,” gives you more information: The primary objective of using the marketing products and/or services is to obtain more customers. This helps you know that the end result (benefit) to you is to obtain more business rather than, say, to access a marketing training program.

Next, the primary messaging you see on my website’s home page is, “Curious Dog Marketing helps small business owners earn more business by communicating more actively with potential customers.”

That sentence tells you several things:

1. It again emphasizes the benefit is to obtain more business.
2. It identifies my primary target market as small business owners. It doesn’t prohibit me from appealing to larger businesses or to people other than owners, but it makes clear that my value proposition involves striving to meet the needs of small business owners. Thus, when this sentence is read by small business owners, they know they’re in the right place.
3. It uses the term “helps small business owners” to be clear that the services provided are to help small business owners to do something rather than implying a standalone outsourced function that doesn’t leverage collaboration.
4. It specifically cites “communications” as my area of expertise rather than, say, product development or market research.

If you’re familiar with an “elevator speech,” messaging is a written version of that. It’s key to marketing (and thus sales) because it identifies what you do and for whom so that more of your busy prospects will consider you rather than pass you by because they’re not certain what you do. Clarity is essential.

For some businesses, messaging may require more than one sentence. However, shorter is always better. Also, be sure you are direct and state your message simply. Otherwise, you risk your prospects either losing patience and moving on or getting the impression it would be too hard to work with you because you obfuscate the desideratum. 🙂

There’s one more thing about my own branding and messaging I’d like to use as a helpful example. I’ve added some personality to my branding and developed a company name, logo, and tagline that are friendly and a little playful, to set myself apart as a pleasant person with whom to work. I know that a prospect who dislikes my branding probably would not enjoy collaborating with me (and vice-versa) and thus I have subtly conveyed more information about my target market that is helpful to both me and my prospects.